Nonfiction Books

The Big Book of Boy Stuff

Bart King, Chris Sabatino

Amazon Price: $15.64 List Price: $19.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Gibbs Smith, Publisher Amazon Marketplace: 56 new & used starting at $5.50

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Subjects -> Children's Books -> Reference & Nonfiction -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 50 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

There's this boy. Let's say he's somewhere between nine and thirteen years old or so. You'd like to see this kid get creative. You'd like to see him get some exercise. You'd like to see him get out from in front of the television. And you'd love for him to be motivated enough to find some stuff to do on his own. This boy NEEDS The Big Book of Boy Stuff!

The Big Book of Boy Stuff has all the important information that boys just have to know. Collected here for the first time in one place, it holds the answers to these timeless questions: What do I do if I get a bean stuck up my nose? How can I make lightning without killing myself? Where can I find new practical jokes to play on my friends and family? What is the best way to poop outside? How do I tell a girl I like her? WHY would I tell a girl I like her? How many mosquitoes does it take to suck all the blood out of a person? . . . and many, many more! This big, thick, durable book includes fascinating chapters on gross stuff, magic, emergencies, fireworks, games, experiments, jokes, activities, insults, pets, flying things, and, of course, duct tape. This is perhaps the greatest book ever published!

American Medical Association Boy's Guide to Becoming a Teen

American Medical Association, Kate Gruenwald Pfeifer

Amazon Price: $10.36 List Price: $12.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Jossey-Bass Amazon Marketplace: 59 new & used starting at $6.59

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 17 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Boy's Guide to Becoming a Teen 4 out of 5 stars.
6 of 6 people found this review helpful.

I bought this book for my 10 year old. I was very pleased with the way it explained things. I read the book to him and answered any questions that he had as we went along. He did not have very many, because it was explained very well. However, there is a part in the book I did not read to him, which is the reason why I did not let him read the book by himself. The part touches on sex, which I don't have a problem with except for the fact that it explained oral and anal sex, and I don't feel like a 10 year old should know about things like that.

Editorial Review:

Becoming a teen is an important milestone in every boy’s life. It’s even more important to get answers and advice to the most common health issues boys face from a trusted source. The American Medical Association Boy’s Guide to Becoming a Teen is filled with invaluable advice to get you ready for the changes you will experience during puberty. Learn about these important topics and more:

• Puberty and what kinds of physical and emotional changes you can expect—from your developing body to your feelings about girls
• The importance of eating the right foods and taking care of your body
• Pimples, acne, and how to properly care for your skin
• Your reproductive system—inside and out
• Thinking about relationships and dealing with new feelings

How To Be The Best At Everything (The Boys' Book)

Dominique Enright, Guy MacDonald, Nikalas Catlow

Amazon Price: $9.99 List Price: $9.99 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Scholastic Press Amazon Marketplace: 50 new & used starting at $4.98

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 16 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Best at Everything indeed! 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

My 7.5 year old stepson requested this from his school book fair. He spent days devouring it and reading us excerpts. He LOVED it. I think it makes a great read for boys aged 6-13.

Want to learn how to fly a helicopter? 3 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

A quick and easy read for kids looking to impress their friends and survive a few sticky situations.

Learn how to fly a helicopter, tie a knot, start a fire, and make an awesome paper airplane (and much more).

Some of the tips and tricks will be very useful in everyday life, like treating bee stings and taking a great photo. Others, like getting out of quicksand or fighting a crocodile will never be needed by most readers!

Editorial Review:

How to do almost anything in one handy book.

Found yourself in a sticky situation? Inside you'll learn how to escape quicksand (p. 40), build a raft (p.41), start a survival fire (p.99), or fly a helicopter (p. 11).

Want to impress your friends? Now you can rip a phonebook in half (p. 35), hypnotize a chicken (p. 56), or read their minds (p. 73).

Boring Saturday afternoon? Not anymore when you find out how to make a waterbomb (p. 79), a boomerang (p. 95), or a volcano (p. 88).

And loads of other keen things you need to know how to do!

The American Boy's Handy Book: What to Do and How to Do It, Centennial Edition

Daniel Carter Beard

Amazon Price: $10.36 List Price: $12.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Channel Craft - Model: HBB Amazon Marketplace: 80 new & used starting at $3.64

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Subjects -> Children's Books -> Arts & Music -> Crafts & Hobbies

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 36 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Teachers take note of this gem 4 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

Looking for a new way to make Mark Twain come alive in your classroom? Help your students travel back in time by engaging in some of the wonderful projects in The American Boy's Handy Book by Daniel Carter Beard. Aside from illustrating some of Twain's work, Beard was an avid educator who also was a co-founder of the Boy Scouts of America. He wrote their first Boy Scout Handbook and was a lifelong advocate of making your own fun. This treasure of a book will suggest projects for your class which will help them understand the world of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn. Make kites in the shape of stars, turtles, shields and dragons. Build your own giant bubble machine or a Puss in Boots puppet show (script is included). Avoid the more violent blow guns and fighting kites but enjoy the simplicity and just plain fun of this book. Along the way, your students will have a new appreciation for Mark Twain's world and the boys he wrote about.

Editorial Review:

First published in 1882, this is a wealth of projects and games, with practical directions on how to make them, by one of the founders of the Boy Scouts of America. The ultimate pre-TV, anti-couch potato activity book, it answers the question, "What's there to do?"

For Boys Only: The Biggest, Baddest Book Ever

Marc Aronson, HP Newquist

Amazon Price: $10.17 List Price: $14.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Feiwel & Friends Amazon Marketplace: 49 new & used starting at $7.35

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 7 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

My son loves the book 5 out of 5 stars.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful.

I bought this book as a Christmas gift for my 9 year old son. It's funny how he's taken right to it. He'll be looking thru the book like he's scheming to find something to pull on his sisters! I think he's enjoying the book more than I expected.

Editorial Review:

Hey, Boys!

Want to have some fun? Maybe learn how to land an airplane in an emergency? Or fight off an alligator? Escape from being tied up? How about taking a ride on one of America’s scariest roller coasters? Learn how to make fake blood or turn a real bone into a pretzel. What if you could find out how to identify some of the world’s most horrifying creatures? Or learn the secret of making a blockbuster movie? What about guessing the top 11 greatest moments in sports history? Find buried treasure? And once you’ve found the treasure, find out just how much it would cost you to buy one of the world’s most expensive cars.

You’ll find all this—and much more—over 250 pages of the biggest, baddest, and best information on just about everything. Plus we’ve placed a special, mind-bending, solve-the-code puzzle on random pages throughout the book that will lead you to a really cool solution! Now, that’s fun!

What's Going on Down There?: Answers to Questions Boys Find Hard to Ask

Karen Gravelle, Nick Castro, Chava Castro, Robert Leighton, Walker & Co

Amazon Price: $8.95 List Price: $8.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Walker Books for Young Readers Amazon Marketplace: 63 new & used starting at $1.05

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 44 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Why is my voice making such weird sounds? When will I be able to start shaving? Why do I keep getting pimples? What is a wet dream?

 

Your body has been behaving very strangely lately. You hardly know what to expect from one day to the next. Karen Gravelle, with some help from her two young advisors, Nick and Chava Castro, has written a down-to-earth and practical book that will help guide you through this confusing time in your life. What's Going On Down There? answers any questions you might have about puberty, from what it is and what it feels like, to what puberty is like for girls, to how to handle the sexual feelings you may be starting to experience. Robert Leighton's funny and informative cartoons ease the confusion and exasperation you might feel.

 

Part manual, part older brother, What's Going On Down There? will give you the facts you need to feel comfortable and confident about this new phase of your life.

The Boy's Body Guide: A Health and Hygiene Book for Boys 8 and Older

Frank C. Hawkins, Dr. Greta L. B. Laube (M.D.)

Amazon Price: $9.95 List Price: $9.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Boy's Guide Books Amazon Marketplace: 5 new & used starting at $8.00

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 9 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Ok, But There Are Better 3 out of 5 stars.
19 of 19 people found this review helpful.

While the information in the book is good, the dated looking, grayscale illustrations left me cold and the layout of text and graphics is boring as well. This may seem picky, but the reality is we live in a very visual world. If a text can't hold a child's attention they won't read it.

Those criticisms aside, this has the potential to be a good book in addition to the book "What's Happening to Me?" as it does cover a few topics not covered in "What's Happening to Me?"What's Happening to Me?: Boys Edition (What's Happening to Me?). If you're only going to spring for one book, however, I wouldn't make it this one. If the publisher fixed some of the graphics and layout issues to better appeal to the target audience, I would have moved my rating up to 4 stars. The information it contains is sound and needs to be covered with our boys.

One of the reviewers mentioned removing the page on masturbation. By doing that one also removes the section called "How Things Change!" that discussed the physical changes a boy's genital area experiences during puberty, what an erection is and about wet dreams, and, that those are all normal. I would not recommend removing page 37/38, two of the more important pages in the book when discussing the physical changes during puberty.

I hope this book is reprinted in a more accessible format. It has the potential to be an important book in your child's life.

Editorial Review:

Based on the best-selling book from American Girl®, The Care and Keeping of You, this pediatrician-recommended guide is packed with basic health and hygiene advice written just for boys.

For Young Men Only: A Guy's Guide to the Alien Gender

Jeff Feldhahn, Eric Rice

Amazon Price: $10.97 List Price: $13.99 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Multnomah Books Amazon Marketplace: 37 new & used starting at $7.44

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 8 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

A window for young men into the dark mystery that is women 4 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

On the front cover is a quote from Jeff Foxworthy - you know, the "You might be a red neck..." guy. So I was a bit curious what direction this was going to take, and thankfully it went in a good direction. The book was an enjoyable light read, with a lot of good information. It isn't a religious book though it appears to have a solid Christian worldview, and is solid in most of what it says. It is written clearly, but in a language that today's teen guys will totally get. It connects well.

Instead of being a religious book looking at dating, this book sets out to be more informal, and more informational, providing a good look at what young women are looking for in young men. I couldn't' help but think that this book would have been useful to me when I was in its target market teenage range. It is wise without being condescending, educational without being preachy. It serves as a light for young men into the dark mystery that is women. While women will continue to confound young men after reading this book, it is a good first step to better understanding.

The areas the book covers are:
1. Why do girls pick the fancy boys over the average ones?
2. Why are good girls attracted to bad guys?
3. Why do girls seem so crazy sometimes?
4. Why do girls like you one day, and then want to break up the next?
5. What can guys do to better listen to girls?
6. What go girls really think about sex?

I found sections three and four to be the most interesting to me, but all were well thought out, well researched, well documented and clearly presented.

Editorial Review:

Just for guys…
the inside scoop on girls
from the girls themselves.

Okay, the authors aren't girls. But to bring you the facts they surveyed more than 1,000 of them. Every teen guy wants to know how girls are wired, what they want, and how they really think…

Or at least how to talk to a girl without feeling like an idiot.

Here's your chance to find out.

Guys Write for Guys Read: Boys' Favorite Authors Write About Being Boys

Jon Scieszka

Amazon Price: $9.23 List Price: $11.99 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Viking Juvenile Amazon Marketplace: 42 new & used starting at $4.80

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 23 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Thumbs up from a teacher 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

I teach eighth grade Language Arts, and I'm always on the prowl for books that will engage young boys to read. I picked this up on a whim, and I'm very pleased. This anthology has a little bit of everything in it: fiction, non-fiction, illustrations, cartoon strips -- the works. The shorts cover a wide-range of topics from the silly to the dead-serious. In short, there's something in this book for every taste. I think it will be a popular book for my classroom library.

There's only one little thing that I'm hesitant about: there's one illustration in the book that shows recognizable male genitalia on a monster drawn when the artist was in fifth grade (I think). Unfortunately, I'm going to have to take a Sharpie to that portion of the illustration. I'd rather not, but we live in interesting times.

Editorial Review:

This fast-paced, high-energy collection of short works features today’s most popular writers and illustrators writing about what it means to be a guy. Contributors include Chris Crutcher, Stephen King, Matt Groening, Daniel Pinkwater, Neil Gaiman, and many more. Includes an all-new foreword by Jon Scieszka and an excerpt from Knucklehead.

On the Field with...Peyton and Eli Manning (Matt Christopher Sports Biographies)

Matt Christopher, Stephanie Peters

Amazon Price: $4.99 List Price: $4.99 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Little, Brown Young Readers Amazon Marketplace: 38 new & used starting at $1.80

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Editorial Review:

No other family has conquered football like the Manning's. It all started with the dad, Archie, a former pro quarterback who taught his sons Peyton and Eli to play football. Now, as the brothers have both grown into pro quarterbacks', they're creating a legacy of their own, starting with two stunning Super Bowl wins. This exciting Matt Christopher biography gives readers the story behind this famous football family, as well as thrilling recaps of some of the most awesome games in NFL history.